ASUS X541UJ BIOS not displaying the NVIDIA hardware.

Good day everybody,

Previously I found a thread about the ASUS X541UJ BIOS problems where the main issue was that the machine did not identify the booting devices. It also didn't display the NVIDIA display hardware but this was a secondary issue as far as I could tell. The user Mobotool then continued to explain how he fixed that issue by removing the BIOS IC and reprogramming it.

I now face an almost similar situation. I have an ASUS X541U laptop. The motherboard that came with the laptop is a X541UAK which does not have the NVIDIA dedicated display hardware and Video RAM. This motherboard suffered a power surge and died. I know it is possible to trace and bridge the blown MOSFET but I failed at this.

I then found another motherboard for this laptop on E-bay and bought it. This one however is the X541UJ which is exactly the same as the blown board except that this motherboard has the dedicated NVIDIA display hardware.

I then assembled the laptop and booted up Windows 10 but when I tried to install the Windows drivers for the NVIDIA video it failed every time saying that the drivers won't work with the version of Windows. I downloaded the x86-64 drivers for Windows 10 64 bit which is what I have but no luck. I downloaded these drivers from many different websites but they all had this problem. Windows also didn't detect the hardware so I couldn't get Windows to find and install the drivers.

I then decided to flash the BIOS and I downloaded the correct BIN file, flashed the BIOS and then noticed that the NVIDIA hardware is now not there anymore. Here I tried different versions of the BIOS going back several versions but to no avail - I couldn't get the BIOS to recognize the NVIDIA again.

This is when I discovered the mentioned thread on this site. I privately messaged Mobotool and he helped me further in explaining what sorts of equipment I need to accomplish this goal of removing the BIOS, reprogramming it and putting it back. He also asked if I could start a new thread on this where we could continue this discussion.

I have never removed a BIOS chip, reprogrammed it and resoldered it back on a motherboard so I am somewhat reluctant to just do it without making sure that this is the only way forward. If it is the only way I am more than happy to give this a go but I need to know what I'm getting myself into first.

So with that said I have some questions that may seem very newby .... because they probably are.

The BIOS has a flashing utility whereby one can flash the firmware. Does this flashing utility's operation differ from physically removing the chip and reprogramming it with a USB programmer?

Is there perhaps another way of getting this BIOS to recognize the NVIDIA hardware without having to physically remove the chip?

I think I have written enough for now.

Thanks in advance for any answers

LINK TO ORIGINAL THREAD: asus-r541uj-x541uvk-rev-2-0-bios-problems-no-boot-devices-t69091.html?hilit=ASUS%20X541UJ

Hi wokani. First thing first, you should return that purchased motherboard back to the seller for a refund - if it does not recognise or start the dedicated GPU correctly, even with the correct drivers installed, then the motherboard is faulty. I believe that the best you can do is to try and repair your original board with a little help from our community.

Hi there Vogelek23,

Thanks for your answer. I do have to point out that before I flashed the BIOS the first time it did recognize the NVIDIA hardware in the BIOS without any problems. It was in Windows 10 where I had issues to install the drivers. When I ran the installer it reported that the drivers were incompatible with the version of Windows I had running on the laptop. All the drivers I downloaded from various sources including the official driver from the ASUS website for this model of laptop gave the same error.

After a number of searches on Google numerous people suggested that I flash the BIOS with a newer version. It was after I did this the first time that the NVIDIA hardware "disappeared" from the BIOS and it only showed the Intel graphics hardware.

This is why I think the board if fine but the BIOS flashing broke something. I may very well be wrong and the board could be faulty but I'd like to test my theory first before I just return it.